Of course, each housing market is regional and varies greatly from the other. Still, there are indicators home owners can rely on to see whether their home values are about to rise. Here are six.

Worth reading.

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Home Buyer Tax Credit:  Final Deal?

Published: Thursday, 29 Oct 2009 | 11:18 AM ET

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By: Diana Olick
CNBC Real Estate Reporter

For those of you keeping score on the first time home buyer tax credit extension, here is the latest:

— The tax credit would be $8,000 for first-time home buyers and $6,500 for move-up buyers (from December 1, 2009 to April 30, 2010).

— Move-up buyers will be eligible, so long as the home they are leaving has been used as their principal residence for 5 years or more.

— The tax credit would sunset on April 30, 2010. However, there would a binding contract rule that will permit those with contracts as of April 30th to qualify for the credit so long as they complete the transaction within 60 days.

Mortgages

30 yr fixed 5.19% 5.35% 30 yr fixed jumbo 6.04% 6.17% 15 yr fixed 4.62% 4.88% 15 yr fixed jumbo 5.53% 5.76% 5/1 ARM 4.24% 4.12% 5/1 jumbo ARM 4.66% 4.18%

Bankrate.com

— The income limits for both first-time home buyers and move-up buyers would be $125,000 for single return and $225,000 joint return.

— Cost of the home may not exceed $800,000 to be eligible.

— For purchases made in 2010, taxpayers would be able to claim the credit on their 2009 income tax return.

— Home buyers would not have to repay the credit, provided the home remains their principal residence for 36 months after the purchase date.

— The amendment includes a military waiver provision, meaning the recapture provision would not apply in the case of a member of the Armed Forces, military intelligence or Foreign Service who is on qualified official extended duty. In addition, members of the military who have been deployed overseas for 90 days or more in 2008 or 2009 would have until April 30, 2011, to claim the home buyer tax credit.

— The amendment also includes anti-fraud language that provides math authority to the IRS to do greater oversight during the processing of the return rather than waiting for an audit situation. The amendment requires the taxpayer claiming the credit to be 18 or older as well as requiring a HUD-1 settlement statement to be attached when claiming the credit.

AND supposedly, sometime after 11a, the Treasury and HUD Secretaries will officially call on Congress to extend the credit and the higher conforming loan limits.

• 30-Year Mortgage Rate Remains Nearly The Same
• Slideshow: 10 Most Affordable Metro Areas

Questions?  Comments? “); RealtyCheck@cnbc.com‘);

© 2009 CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Topics:Interest Rates | Housing | Real Estate

Sectors:Financial Services | Construction and Materials

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Read the rest via the Mashable link.

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Please click the ‘picture’ below to go to the Schumacher Homes website. They ‘Build On Your Lot’ and we have an abundance of lots right now!

P.S. MLS/IDX will be back up any day now… once website update is finished.

Good reading and an interesting bunch of comments.

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Tips for Buying a HUD Home

Shannon Judd with PEMCO Limited, a marketing management company for the HUD foreclosure process gives the Think Glink “Profiting from Foreclosure” event attendees information and tips for buying a HUD home. If you are looking to buy foreclosed Atlanta real estate to rent or own, consider these tips before bidding on a foreclosed HUD home.  There are currently more than 4,000 HUD homes in Georgia.

HUD homes are available to purchase to anyone. HUD sells to three types of buyers:

1. Owner-occupant buyers (must occupy property for at least one year)
2. Investors – you can buy as many as you want
3. Government agencies and non profits.

All HUD homes are sold online through an auction site. Visit www.hudPemco.com to see foreclosed HUD homes and get information on working with HUD. Homes are listed first with a 12 day priority owner-occupancy preference. This is a sealed bid auction. Potential homeowners wishing to buy and live in the house should submit one bid, one time.  After the 12 days, the home is open for a daily auction and open for investors to bid on it. As an investor, you will have to use an agent to represent you in the auction . Your real estate agent will submit your bid on your behalf. Be prepared to give your social security number – that is how they monitor and track their auctions and it is best if you are prequalified.

You will find out right away whether you were awarded the contract.  Typically you will be notified the next day.  At that point, documents are executed and you have 45 days to close.

On average what is the sales price relative to where the price starts? All properties are listed “as is” based on FHA fair market value, comps and appraisals are other foreclosed properties.

HUD homes can be viewed prior to bidding; however, you can not put a contingency on a HUD home, so read the property contingency report. If your home inspection reveals the same things that the contingency report states, but you didn’t read the contingency report, it’s  kind of too bad, HUD already warned you about that!

Shannon gives advise to attendees on buying HUD foreclosures, “You want to work with an agent who has bought HUD homes before.” She continues, “Every 10 days or so the price is reduced and every 10 days or so we change what we are willing to accept. If your agent has sold a number of HUD homes they will understand how this works.”

Top tips for buying from HUD:

• Learn how it works at www.Hud.gov – great site to search
• HUD registered agent – find one
• Lender – find a lender who is comfortable working with HUD

Right now there is a ton of downpayment assistance for owner-occupied HUD properties, so it is a perfect time to buy.

Let us know if you have purchased a HUD foreclosure as your primary residence or as rental property and how that is working out for you.

Photo courtesy of ResPres: http://www.flickr.com/photos/respres/

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Hello Freddie? I’d like to apply for a job!

by Tom Vanderwell on September 25, 2009
in Mortgage Matters, Mortgage Rate Updates, banks

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Okay, this is just too much.   Supposedly when the government (meaning you and me!) bought/bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they gave all of the top executives a major pay cut.   I mean after all, they were going from being private citizens to being civil servants.

Well, guess what, Freddie just hired a new CFO.  And guess what, they are paying him $3.5 Million a year.   That’s right, $3.5 Million per year.   Oh, and that works out to almost a 400% increase from what he was making last year.

Oh, Freddie?   Are you out there?   If you are offering 400% pay increases, I’d like to apply for a job!

Tom VanderwellFreddie Mac hands out big bonus to new CFO | footnoted.org

Last we checked, Freddie Mac (FRE) was still operating under a conservatorship, having received over $51 billion in taxpayer money. And, we seem to recall lots of chest-beating last year about sharply lower salaries and fewer perks for the new group of top executives charged with setting Freddie (and Fannie Mae) back on the path to prosperity.

So you can imagine our surprise when we came across this employment contract yesterday for Freddie’s newly named CFO, Ross J. Kari. Here’s a few key bullets:

* annual compensation of $3.5 million (this includes $675K in salary, $1.6 million in something called “additional annual salary” and $1.1 million in a target incentive
* a $1.95 million signing bonus
* immediate buyout of Kari’s house (or perhaps houses)
* reimbursement for travel between Washington D.C. and Kari’s residences in Ohio, Washington and Oregon

Needless to say, none of this — and certainly not the ridiculous sounding additional annual salary — was included in the press release that Freddie put out earlier this week.

Technorati Tags: Freddie Mac, Government Bailout, Executive Compensation

Related Posts

• October 19, 2009 — What is Open Access? And why should I care?
• October 6, 2009 — Why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don’t like Condos….
• September 19, 2009 — Think our government isn’t borrowing a lot of money?
• September 8, 2009 — The US National Mortgage Corporation?
• August 25, 2009 — Is PMI DOA?

Tags: Executive Compensation, Freddie Mac, Government Bailout

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